Lens service advice...

[Mark0]

Hey, so a bit of backstory - I was out last night taking photos on one of my favourite beaches, and went to change a filter over. On my way over to my bag, to keep an eye on the newly incoming tide, I stopped to mark a line on the sandbar as a tide marker only to hear a deep 'splash' as if a large rock had been thrown in. The sight of one tripod leg pointing out of the water had me scrambling over to salvage my gear. It had blown over in the wind and must have not been stable enough in the soft sand. Needless to say, despite the X-T2 being 'Weather Resistant' it succumbed to the 5-10 second immersion in a foot of salt water. It's broken and nothing can be done with it - however, the XF16-55 f2.8 lens I had attached seemed to be dry inside and the seal on the mount held firm - so maybe it's WR is effective. I got home and replaced lens caps and rinsed it in clean (very soft) tap water. It's been dried and I felt the awful grinding of sand in the focus ring. I've vacuumed most of it out and it's a lot smoother now but I'm not sure if the lens is actually working - as I have no camera to test it on and don't know anyone locally who has.

Anyway, do we think it's worth sending the lens away for an inspection / quote for repair if needed? If so, how much do we reckon it will cost?

Before anyone asks, it's not insured (we thought it was but that's another long story).

 

[deep diver]

Hey, so a bit of backstory - I was out last night taking photos on one of my favourite beaches, and went to change a filter over. On my way over to my bag, to keep an eye on the newly incoming tide, I stopped to mark a line on the sandbar as a tide marker only to hear a deep 'splash' as if a large rock had been thrown in. The sight of one tripod leg pointing out of the water had me scrambling over to salvage my gear. It had blown over in the wind and must have not been stable enough in the soft sand. Needless to say, despite the X-T2 being 'Weather Resistant' it succumbed to the 5-10 second immersion in a foot of salt water. It's broken and nothing can be done with it - however, the XF16-55 f2.8 lens I had attached seemed to be dry inside and the seal on the mount held firm - so maybe it's WR is effective. I got home and replaced lens caps and rinsed it in clean (very soft) tap water. It's been dried and I felt the awful grinding of sand in the focus ring. I've vacuumed most of it out and it's a lot smoother now but I'm not sure if the lens is actually working - as I have no camera to test it on and don't know anyone locally who has.

Anyway, do we think it's worth sending the lens away for an inspection / quote for repair if needed? If so, how much do we reckon it will cost?

Before anyone asks, it's not insured (we thought it was but that's another long story).

Sorry to hear about that. I think we can all feel your pain. It is a $1,200 lens and will cost you only $50-75 to have someone take a look and give an estimate. I would not want to test it myself and do more damage on account of the sand.

 

[dimme]

I would send it in for service if it was me. I am a Nikon shooter and have used Midwest camera repair. Happy customer. I dropped a lens about a year ago. No glass broke but the focus was out a bit. The charged $325 for a complete cleaning and calibration

 

[Lee_Bo]

As the others have said, I'd go ahead and send it in for a repair estimate. If it's only a few hundred for cleaning and calibration it would be worth it.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Hey, so a bit of backstory - I was out last night taking photos on one of my favourite beaches, and went to change a filter over. On my way over to my bag, to keep an eye on the newly incoming tide, I stopped to mark a line on the sandbar as a tide marker only to hear a deep 'splash' as if a large rock had been thrown in. The sight of one tripod leg pointing out of the water had me scrambling over to salvage my gear. It had blown over in the wind and must have not been stable enough in the soft sand. Needless to say, despite the X-T2 being 'Weather Resistant' it succumbed to the 5-10 second immersion in a foot of salt water. It's broken and nothing can be done with it - however, the XF16-55 f2.8 lens I had attached seemed to be dry inside and the seal on the mount held firm - so maybe it's WR is effective. I got home and replaced lens caps and rinsed it in clean (very soft) tap water. It's been dried and I felt the awful grinding of sand in the focus ring. I've vacuumed most of it out and it's a lot smoother now but I'm not sure if the lens is actually working - as I have no camera to test it on and don't know anyone locally who has.

Anyway, do we think it's worth sending the lens away for an inspection / quote for repair if needed? If so, how much do we reckon it will cost?

Before anyone asks, it's not insured (we thought it was but that's another long story).

Sorry to hear that. My worst nightmare.
Are you sure the camera can’t be saved?

Like others have said, it’s probably worth a conversation with a couple of camera repair places. Send them a video of the movement and ‘damage’ and ask for an estimate.

Failing that sell it on eBay! (Kidding).

 

[Mark0]

Thank you all for the replies. I’ll try it on a new body when I get one (X-T2 again or more expensive X-T3 - another conundrum!) I’m guessing £200-£300 will be a safe estimate for a clean and repair then.

As for the X-T2, it is dead. It might have stood a chance if the connector door wasn’t open at the time (I was using the cable release).

So yeah, I’ll see how I get on. An expensive lesson. I’ve not long sold my GX617 so I’ll can use some of the money from that to get everything sorted.

Thanks again folks.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Thank you all for the replies. I’ll try it on a new body when I get one (X-T2 again or more expensive X-T3 - another conundrum!) I’m guessing £200-£300 will be a safe estimate for a clean and repair then.

As for the X-T2, it is dead. It might have stood a chance if the connector door wasn’t open at the time (I was using the cable release).

So yeah, I’ll see how I get on. An expensive lesson. I’ve not long sold my GX617 so I’ll can use some of the money from that to get everything sorted.

Thanks again folks.

Let us know how you get on. I’m trying to remember the company I used. I’ll look it up when I’m home.

 

[Ray2]

I’ve had excellent experience with Fuji in both the USA and Switzerland (Europe service center - forget where it was).

 

[Mark0]

Well, my X-T3 arrived and initially my 16-55 worked well. AF is fine but I noticed when using the aperture ring that it would go flaky and weird, causing a stuttering effect which would make me wonder if the aperture blade assembly has been affected by salt water. Hopefully it can be fixed so I’m going to send the lens to Fuji to see if it’s fixable within their limits. Failing that I’ll nip it off to another lens repairer for another quote.

 

[Laird Knox]

Don't forget to hang a weight on the tripod hook. Even a gear bag can help stabilize a tripod.

 

[Mark0]

Don't forget to hang a weight on the tripod hook. Even a gear bag can help stabilize a tripod.

I have done that in the past and have plenty of carabiners for that purpose, usually for when doing long exposures.

 

[Mark0]

Well, my lens arrived back from Fuji, fully repaired! They charge a flat rate of £150 for this lens (I’d imagine my repair would’ve cost a bit more than that) and it’s as good as new and has a 12 month warranty. That WR sealing is impressive if the sea water only affected the aperture ring area. Hugely impressed by the service. Looking forward to using it again. A repair of that magnitude only costing 15% of a brand new copy of the same lens? Fantastic value!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well, my lens arrived back from Fuji, fully repaired! They charge a flat rate of £150 for this lens (I’d imagine my repair would’ve cost a bit more than that) and it’s as good as new and has a 12 month warranty. That WR sealing is impressive if the sea water only affected the aperture ring area. Hugely impressed by the service. Looking forward to using it again. A repair of that magnitude only costing 15% of a brand new copy of the same lens? Fantastic value!

Good news! Glad it didn’t break the bank.

 

[Mark0]

Good news! Glad it didn’t break the bank.

Me too, I honestly thought it was done for!

 

[Mark0]

Sooooo, maybe I spoke too soon! The lens began to show the same faults again, so I had to send it back to Fuji. It's not entirely surprising, as salt corrosion can take place some time after exposure. Maybe they missed something or didn't see it on a particular part. The good news is that after the first repair, the lens was covered by a new 12 month warranty, so this second repair will not cost me any additional money. I'm kind of hoping they will write the lens off and supply me with a refurbished unit, but who knows. I'll know this time next week hopefully.

Here is a clip of the fault, it's related to the aperture ring again:

 

[Mark0]

Well, for anyone who has been following - this got interesting as after I sent the lens back for a 2nd repair, it came back and immediately displayed similar problems to what the video above showed. The lens was away for a turnaround of 11 days (they aim for 7-10), so I figured they'd taken the thing to bits and took a closer look, but obviously the problem still persisted. Anyway, I shot a more lengthy video and replicated the problem and linked to this in my 3rd repair application. So, off it went on it's 3rd journey. I was surprised when the lens was sent back after only 1 day at Fuji and I reckoned that they'd finally given in and sent me a refurbished lens. Upon inspecting it today, it has a different serial number, a few new bits on the exterior, combined with a couple of small wear marks, so I think it's reasonable to assume I've got a refurb and will no longer have issues. I gave it a rough testing earlier and all appears good.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well, for anyone who has been following - this got interesting as after I sent the lens back for a 2nd repair, it came back and immediately displayed similar problems to what the video above showed. The lens was away for a turnaround of 11 days (they aim for 7-10), so I figured they'd taken the thing to bits and took a closer look, but obviously the problem still persisted. Anyway, I shot a more lengthy video and replicated the problem and linked to this in my 3rd repair application. So, off it went on it's 3rd journey. I was surprised when the lens was sent back after only 1 day at Fuji and I reckoned that they'd finally given in and sent me a refurbished lens. Upon inspecting it today, it has a different serial number, a few new bits on the exterior, combined with a couple of small wear marks, so I think it's reasonable to assume I've got a refurb and will no longer have issues. I gave it a rough testing earlier and all appears good.

Result!